Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Constructor: Adrian Johnson and Ryan McCarty

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: GENDER EUPHORIA (14A: Feeling that a new haircut or a new set of clothes might bring) —

Gender euphoria (GE) is a term for the satisfaction, enjoyment, or relief felt by people when they feel their gender expression matches their personal gender identity. Psych Central's definition is "deep joy when your internal gender identity matches your gender expression." It is proposed that feelings of gender euphoria require societal acceptance of gender expression. In academics and the medical field, a consensus has not yet been reached on a precise definition of the term, as it has been mainly used within a social context. The first attempt to rigorously define gender euphoria through an online survey took place in 2021, conducted by Will Beischel, Stéphanie Gauvin, and Sari van Anders. Transgender congruence is also used to ascribe transgender individuals feeling genuine, authentic, and comfortable with their gender identity and external appearance.
The term gender euphoria has been used by the transgender community since at least the mid-1970s. Originally, it referred to the feeling of joy arising from fulfilling a mix of gender roles, which was different from the concept of gender dysphoria, which is used to describe individuals who wished to medically transition to a different sex.In the 1980s, the term was published in trans contexts, coming up in interviews with trans people. For example, in a 1988 interview with a trans man, the subject states, "I think that day [Dr. Charles Ilhenfeld] administered my first shot of the 'wonder-drug' must have been one of the 'peak-experiences' of my life -- talk about 'gender euphoria'!" The interview indicates he is referring to testosterone. (wikipedia)

• • •

[15A: Child support?]

Saturday euphoria is a little different from Friday euphoria. On Friday, I like things to be a little difficult, but what I really like is whooshing and zooming around the grid by way of long, original, entertaining answers. The whoosh is the euphoria. On Saturdays, on great Saturdays, the euphoria is slower in coming, since the solve is more of a grind. Frustration, even annoyance, that then releases into "oh ... yeah, that's good, actually"—that's the stuff I'm looking for on Saturday. And I got plenty of it today. This puzzle had the kind of "difficulty" I like—not (that many) obscure answers, but tricky, mischievous, misdirective cluing that has you spinning your wheels ... until you finally get traction and (ideally, maybe grudgingly) find yourself appreciating both the answer and the clue's cleverness. The biggest "screw this!" to "wow, ok, that's good" swing I experienced today came with END RANT (2D: Means of closing up a vent). I had an inkling that "vent" was going to mean something other than the expected "opening that permits the escape of fumes, steam, etc." If you're "closing up" is the phrase you'd use for sealing a physical "vent"— that's what the clue wants you thinking about, so you don't see the other kind of vent, which is the intended one. It's Saturday, so my instinct is to look for the off-/alt-meaning, always. But even so, I couldn't find the handle on the answer today, and ended up writing in ENTENTE (a friendly agreement between countries ... maybe the countries are less hostile now and so they've stopped venting at each other? I dunno, it made some kind of sense when I wrote it in—and so many common letters ... it seemed possible). Then, because END RANT ran right through a three-letter tennis player (ANA) whose name could've been anything—IGA (an actual tennis champion's name), IDA (my cat's name), INA, UNA, ENA—I didn't have the "A." At some point I did get that second "N," but instead of helping me get END RANT, all it did was make me hallucinate an END RING (you know, the thing you pull to close up the vent!) (UGH!). But when, eventually, I got END RANT, after a second of two of "dammit!" resentment, I had to admit that yes that is a current, much-used phrase (mostly in social media posts), and a good one. An original one, at least. That END RANT fight is the kind of fight I wish puzzles gave me more often.

But what makes this puzzle really lovely are the stacks, both of which (up top, down below) are strong and vivid. Or at least two-thirds strong and vivid. Can't say I care too much for SENIOR CENTERS or ONLINE CASINOS, but the rest of those long Acrosses are solid. And I say this as someone who gave up on Marvel movies years ago—still didn't mind seeing AVENGERS: ENDGAME in the grid. And loved HALLOWEEN PARTY (as clued) (48A: Scene for a skeleton crew?), SECURITY BLANKET (as clued) (15A: Child support?) and GENDER EUPHORIA (especially as clued—the clues are the highlights today, as much as the answers themselves) (14A: Feeling that a new haircut or a new set of clothes might bring). Those answers come bursting out of nowhere. The clues get you thinking about one thing, and then hit you with another. Over and over and over. Clever misdirection—that's the key to Saturdays, I think.

[23A: Horn-heavy genre]

Now, "I SAID 'STOP'" is a bit of a made-up phrase (not as common as, say, "I SAID 'NO'"), but it seems pretty standalone-worthy to me. But there really weren't any answers that made me utter a genuine "UGH!" of disgust. And there was a HOST (31A: Bevy) of answers that made me say "Wow." KISS ARMY! (24D: Fan group that often wears black-and-white face paint) That takes me back.

SHOWBOATS is a great word, as is ESCHEWED (30D: Forwent). GETS WISE, PAPER THIN ... the hits keep coming, and the grid hardly buckles at all. The closest thing to a "buckle" for me was Charlie PUTH, but he's going to be a feature not a bug for some people—he's a very popular contemporary singer-songwriter, and this is his debut NYTXW appearance (27D: Charlie with the 2016 hit "We Don't Talk Anymore"). If you're pop culture-averse, I suppose there are a handful of reasons to dislike this grid, but if you count up the pop culture answers in the grid, there really aren't that many. I actually think there's very nice balance to this puzzle, in terms of the variety of answers. The difficulty mostly involves wordplay. That's something I'd like to encourage. We all have to deal with mystery proper nouns from time to time—as long as we're not inundated, I don't think there's a problem. Charlie PUTH's debut single was "Marvin Gaye." I think I'd rather listen to actual Marvin Gaye. Let's listen to Marvin Gaye.

[33D: Dad-blasted]

I know I said I stopped seeing Marvel movies, and I have—completely. They hold no interest for me at all any more. That said, I might be coaxed back into the theater if Marvel released a movie called AVENGERS: END RANT. And speaking of the Avengers, I wish that clue on AVENGERS: ENDGAME had included the word "ironically" somewhere (42A: Penultimate film in a series of 23). It's the penultimate movie in the series but it's called ENDGAME? Inapt! Also, is the series really over? I feel like "penultimate" implies there is an "ultimate" movie and that that movie is the last one. But I assume they will just make more and more ad infinitum. The Internet is telling me there are 37 MCU movies, so I don't really know what this "23" refers to. Are there really 23 (!!!) Avengers movies??? You know what, I try very hard to know as little as possible about the MCU, so you don't have to answer the question, I'm good.

Bullets:

41A: Approx. 25% of it consists of national forests (ORE.) — this could've been anything. [Place with lots of trees], basically. I got ORE. (i.e. Oregon) entirely from crosses. I literally looked up the location of Corvallis just yesterday! (because a reader told me he was from Corvallis and I had to remind myself where that was). No help with this clue, unfortunately. Did you know Corvallis is the westernmost city in the contiguous 48 states with a population of more than 50,000? Me neither. Until yesterday.
50A: Chucked, informally (YEETED) — I love this word. Most new slang (i.e. slang that has come into being since I was young) seems silly and I don't want anything to do with it, but "yeet"—I love it. I love how it sounds. It's like the word for chucking something and the sound that you make when chucking something, simultaneously. It's just fun to say. And it's been in the puzzle before, so you should know it by now. This goes double / triple / quadruple for ELLE Woods and her having taken the LSAT. ELLE and LSAT were gimmes—they helped give me the traction that made this puzzle doable.
3D: Some joint promotions (TIE-INS) — pretty basic stuff, but because it's Saturday, I was rolodexing through every meaning I could think of for "joint." Do they mean knee? Do they mean marijuana cigarette? Prison??? The cruelest thing a Saturday puzzle can do to me is not zag. Just play it straight. I'll never see it coming.
10D: Native American people known as the "Nation du Chat" (ERIE) — gonna start calling my house "Nation du Chat" (oh, and I had CREE here at first):

[Wintertime in la Nation du Chat]

13D: One breaking a 108-year drought in 2016 (CUB) — the CUBs (in)famously hadn't won the World Series in 108 years when they finally won it in 2016. I knew this. But my brain decided the answer should be "on a scoreboard," so I wrote in CHI. Then CHC. :(
28D: God who rides in a chariot pulled by two giant magical goats (THOR) — as divine roads go, this one is hard to beat. I had the "T," so no problem (otherwise, I might've guessed ODIN).
49A: Where one might hope to find good deals on the internet? (ONLINE CASINOS) — saw right through this one ("deals" = cards), but still struggled, as the plural was not readily apparent. I guess you could argue that the plural is indicated by "deals," but presumably, if you're playing online poker, you're playing more than one hand, so multiple "deals" did not, in fact, make me think of multiple CASINOS. Oh well, just another way that Saturdays f*** with you—by hiding plurals. It's fine.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Constructor: Joyce Keller

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Micromobility (35A: Micromobility option => E-SCOOTER) —

The term micromobility refers to a category of small, lightweight vehicles designed for short-distance travel in urban areas and operated by their users. Micromobility encompasses a wide range of transport options, including bicycles, velomobiles, e-bikes, cargo bikes, electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycle fleets, and electric pedal-assisted (pedelec) bicycles. Motorized micromobility vehicles are also known as personal transporters.
Initial definitions set the primary condition for inclusion in the category of micromobility to be a gross vehicle weight of less than 500 kilograms (1,100 lb). However, according to a standard of the SAE International in 2018 the definition has evolved to exclude devices with internal combustion engines and those with top speeds above 45 kilometres per hour (28 mph).
The term micromobility was allegedly coined by Horace Dediu in 2017. However, references to the term on the internet can be found as early as 2010. (wikipedia)

• • •

This one went from high to low real fast. I feel like, if you've been reading me for any length of time, you will know exactly what "high" and even more exactly "low" I'm talking about. I hammered in a few of the short answers in the NW and then looked at the letter combos on the long Acrosses (incl. "LESB-") and knew I had LESBIAN on my hands. "What are they gonna do with the LESBIAN today?" I wondered. What they did was take her to the bar (yay!) by way of a really inventive and clever clue (17A: She's out there!). The "!" tells you that the clue is meant to be taken extremely, even absurdly literally—literally in a way that changes the apparent surface meaning. We often get "!" at the ends of clues containing "it" ([Step on it!] for STAIR, [Beat it!] for DRUM, etc.), but today the mystery word isn't "it" but "there"—is she "out there" because she's wacky, because she's on the loose, because she's literally in your backyard? No. She's "out (as in openly gay) there." She's out where? She's out at the LESBIAN BAR. I like when U.S. crosswords incorporate little cryptic cluing elements like this. I don't think much of "OH, PUH-LEASE" (seen it before, in various spellings, with and without the "OH," kind of a yawner), but LESBIAN BAR was great, both as an answer and as a clue.

["Enjoy your death trap, ladies!"]

But then ... then ... [sigh] then I saw I was dealing with a Down answer that started "ASAT-." Nothing starts "ASAT-." Nothing good anyway. There was no way that this was going to be anything but an "AS A ___" answer, and "AS A" answers, as a rule, are awful. Contrived. Grimace-causing. AS A RULE may be the only one I can actually tolerate. Everything else just feels like you grabbed a random snatch of conversation out of the ether and threw it down in the grid. AS A TREAT is no exception. And the clue ... 8D: How to look at your hot fudge sundae... ugh. How else are you going to look at it? AS A PUNISHMENT? How to look at my hot fudge sundae? HUNGRILY? LUSTFULLY? I did not know there were prescribed ways to look at a hot fudge sundae. The clue wording is just bizarre. Why not just use a clue like [For fun]? Won't make AS A TREAT any better as an answer, but at least you don't call attention to it with the bizarre premise of someone making googly-eyes at ice cream. I might EAT A SANDWICH AS A TREAT, but I would never put any combination of those words in my grid.

["You're thinking up your white lies / You're putting on your BEDROOM EYES"]

Things got better again, though. Real nice descent on the west side, from "THIS ONE'S ON ME" (5D: "I'll take the blame") to (later in the evening, perhaps) BEDROOM EYES (22D: Longing look). The other marquee answers aren't terribly exciting, but they're solid, and the grid stays mostly clean. *Mostly*—TGI is an abomination on its own and I can't believe it's still allowed in the grid. Just because one restaurant saw fit to turn the "F" in TGIF into a full word and thus separate it from the "TGI" doesn't mean any of us should ever accept "TGI" as a standalone thing. I demand that you delete "TGI" from your wordlists immediately, until such time as it becomes a common texting initialism ("too gross, ick!"? "that's [a] good idea!"?) or a mononymous singer's name ("it's pronounced 'Tiggy!'"). I don't much care for YER, either, but at least that's got kind of a cute clue (9D: A little possessive, perhaps?).

No real difficulty today, though. I don't need Fridays to be grueling, but a little more resistance, esp. if it comes in the form of clever clues, would be nice. The only real trouble spots for me today were BEENE (specifically that second "E," which I always think is going to be an "A") (25A: Designer Geoffrey), the first two letters of STARE (I thought it might be GLARE) (27D: Long look), and PICO Mountain, which I've simply never heard of (16A: ___ Mountain (ski area in Killington, Vt.)).

Bullets:

23A: Like kyawthuite among gems (RAREST) — probably should've made "kyawthuite" my Word of the Day today, but since I'm unlikely to see it again for the rest of my life (just as I avoided seeing it for the entirety of my life before today), I decided to go with a more everyday term—or, rather, a term that describes a more everyday phenomenon ("micromobility"). Weird obsession with minerals in today's puzzle—this answer came just a few clues before another comparative mineralogical clue: 28A: Like quartzite vis-à-vis quartz (HARDER).
49A: It is "Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple," per Charles Mingus (CREATIVITY) — not normally a fan of these quotation clues, and honestly I didn't even see this clue when I was solving (I could just tell the answer was CREATIVITY and filled it in). But as crossword clue quotes go, I like this one, mainly because it comes from a jazz great and sounds like something a human being would actually say. I like the colloquial addition of "awesomely simple." I can actually hear a voice there.

52A: Text insert for a flash-forward film scene (YEARS LATER...) — a nice, specific, vivid way of handling this phrase. I wish I could find a specific instance of this "text insert" actually being used in a film (or a tv show), but I'm having trouble getting the movie 28 Years Later out of my search results.

50D: Late actor Kilmer (VAL) — this clue bums me out. Kilmer played so many memorable roles, but all this clue tells you about him is that he's dead. Top Gun! Heat! My favorite VAL Kilmer movie is always going to be Real Genius, both because I watched it over and over as a kid, and because it was filmed almost entirely on the campus of Pomona College, where I ended up going to school (just two years after the movie came out). Real Genius—the first movie to end with the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (Marty Supreme might've done it better, but Real Genius did it first).

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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